Name of Child: Ziona Tzarum

Country of Origin: Yemen

Place of Residence: Atlit

“For we have secretly sinned in Your eyes”

Since my grandparents experienced this horrible crime, which was carried out secretly with the support of the top leadership of this country, I’ve felt the need to participate in a memorial evening for the Yemenite, Mizrahi and Balkan children affair - to raise awareness, to memorialize what happened,and to cry out against it. At the end of the evening, my strong feeling is that we should not remain silent, that I must continue to tell our story to myself, to my children, and anyone whose heart is open. I’ll take some of your time to cry out in the name of the parents whose daughter was stolen.

I’m the grandchild of Ezer and Sarah Tzarum, who migrated to Israel from Sana’a in the fifties together with their two boys, Eli and Mati; they arrived at the Atlit (immigrant) camp, where my grandmother gave birth to her daughter, Ziona.

In short, Ziona was in the hospital, and after a few days my grandmother was told that she passed away and was subsequently buried. Years later my grandmother gave birth to my father, Zion, and later my uncle Yinon. In the late sixties, after a family member who worked for the Central Bureau of Statistics cross-checked her personal data, we began to suspect that Ziona was in fact alive, and that she was adopted by a well-known couple residing in Haifa, from a family closely associated with high-ranking governmental officials. This affair ‘exploded’ and garnered headlines – both my grandmother and ‘Ziona’ were interviewed by the media. It all ended when Ziona decided to refuse meeting my grandparents, and to ascertain whether she was their daughter.

As a child, this story accompanied me all the time; I was forbidden from talking about this with my grandparents, and I never remember it being mentioned by them. My grandparents both accepted the verdict.

This week I asked my father, who was unaware of his sister’s existence till the affair appeared in the headlines, how come his parents were not suspicious, how come they didn’t insist on seeing and checking by themselves? He answered me that ‘Grandpa Ezer couldn’t believe that there were thieves in Eretz Yisrael’. Suddenly their silence became clear to me – it wasn’t just a matter of accepting the verdict, it was rather the fear of accepting the disappointment from the Land of Milk and Honey to which they yearned and which they had dreamt about, in their prayers and songs. But now I have no one left to ask.

Neria Tzur